. . . And there was evening and there was morning is part of the fifth verse in Genesis, Chapter 1: there is a beginning, the first beginning, the first evening that never existed before and for the first time becomes the first morning of all time. It is the origin of all moments. It was conceived to be installed like a separate diptych in the space, so that the first visible image is an explosion whose cause we cannot understand. Sphere of fire, imploded energy. Only afterwards, in the second image, do we see a Molotov bomb in the air, which caused the explosion.

Silvio Mondinelli (Gardone Val Trompia, 1958) is the sixth mountain climber in the world to have ascended all fourteen eight-thousanders along the Himalaya without the help of additional oxygen. He reached the top of Mount Everest four times. I asked Mondinelli to relive the space of the mountaintop, through his memories.
He traced the perimeter, in a 1:1 scale, onto paper, which I used as a jig to make a marble base of the same size. All marks and writings from the original drawing were carved into the marble in order to render, in the most accurate way possible, the image and the memories of the climber.

I will climb to the top of Everest to sing a variation on the The Unanswered Question by Ives, performed on the lowest pitches possible. It’s the elaboration of impossibility, as an attempt to achieve it: going as high as possible – going as low as possible (which speaks of the very substance of the hybrid dimension of music, which unites such a “high” and abstract thing with such a “low” and physical thing, with the sacred as one of meeting points). Reaching the vocal limit while seated on the geographical limit. The use of the voice in Ives Variations Four is based on tumbling strains, that is supposed to be one of the first vocal expressions in the history of humanity, which survives even today in traditional music across the world. Thus, we bear not only “the first sound” you’re searching for, but rather we put it in its primitive form. There’s a high peak at the start of the phrase, and a more or less constant decline begins there (without any resurgence) up to low pitch. We start over from the top on every new phrase. Besides, this is how energy behaves: it has an attack transient, an initial impact, a moment into the motion (Aristotle) – and the rest is energy dissipation. That’s why shout-and-fall melodies are ancestral. Just like the Big Bang, the initial impact is the irreparable moment, while the rest is a resonance of that moment – a dissipating process (“sound”) that can last billions of years. Ives is also the man who composed the World Symphony, a posthumous opus, just as most of his are. In fact, he wrote almost all his work in a utopic dimension, and with a few exceptions he never heard his music performed publicly. This is the joining point between Genesis, sound, the impossible and music (the sacred dominion): being the first to climb to the top of Everest and sing tumbling-strain melodies with the lowest vocal range possible, performing a variation on Ives, sung on lyrics by Nikola Tesla, a man who had his own ideas about the universe and creation, but also about the meaning of time and art. You’ll find below the lyrics used in the piece. As far as neapolitan music is concerned, has you mentioned, its power lies in an impressive ability to self-represent. In fact, it’s the only mediterranean music style with a reference to a city in its name (“la canzone napoletana”). We will have that same ability to self-present that constitutes the immediacy you search for (“as if it were born before language”), referring to the unmistakable shout-and-fall singing.

Život je rit&#1072;m koji se mor&#1072; spozn&#1072;ti.
Life is a rhythm that has to be known.
Vreme ne postoji.
Time does not exist.
&#268;udio sam se kako nešto što je tako malo može narasti do takve neizmjerne veli&#269;ine.
I wondered how something so small can uprise to such an infinite size.
Mašta r&#1072;&#273;&#1072; život.
Imagination gives birth to life.

I wrote the poem of Giuseppe Ungaretti “The wanderer” using scrubble letters.
It’s composed by 228 letters: 23 A, 0 B, 13 C, 5 D, 28 E…
The poemi s in front of us but we can’t read it.

Girovago, (G. Ungaretti), detail

ZEN

2015

Wall intervention, Gen technique

During the recidence for artist Residenza d’artista Carloforte, I asked to a bricklayer from Carloforte to treat the entrance of an abandoned parking lot with the gen technique. This is an ancient technique usen even today, as in the past, when plastering walls in the houses of Carloforte. This underground parking area was never inspected and therefore never used. The bare cement slabs that block the entrance to the lot were covered with the same surface used in covering the town’s homes. This technique is normally employed to protect residences from dried salt: gravel is joined with cement and, with a movement of the wrist, it is thrown onto the wall to create a texture that shines under the island’s sun.

I was here is one of those writings people see on city walls, monuments and park benches. It represents the need to leave a sign behind to underline the fact of being in a certain place. We do this because, once we abandon this site, we like to think that this sign will survive, even after we’re gone. A took a picture from a cliff at ByronBay, the easternmost tip of australia in the Pacific. A sound designer imagined the noise coming from that ocean, which he never visited: he created a vibration that is perceived on the surface of the satin, which touches the subwoofer.

I was here, detail

I was here detail

I was here

2015

Dye-sublimation print on synthetic satin and sea water

Together with Alessandro Mazzatorta, since 2015 I curate the residence for artists Residenza d’artista Carloforte on the little San Pietro Island in Sardinia (Italy). At the end of the the residence, we use organize an exhibition on a boat. The artists invited are called to think about an art intervention and the DEA boat becomes an unconventional exhibition space. During the opening it stays in the harbour and then it set sail, making the complete tour of San Pietro island. The sailormans tied "I was here" on the boat poop and then we draged it around the Island.

By using a sieve, I outlined, in color, the shadow of the remains of the small church La Scala in the province of Siena.
This took place on the winter solstice the day when the sun is at its lowest point on the horizon and shadows are longer with respect to any other time of the year. This is not a study of the shadows, but a way of getting to know and approaching a place, thought a gesture. A playfull attempt at chasing one’s shadow as it moves.

Closer, detail

Delle Piacevolezze matematiche

2014

Action of measuring and wooden instrument

Whit a single pole, Thales amazed the pharaoh Amasis by calculating the height of the pyramid of Cheops. The phara-oh displayed his admiration, stating he was
“amazed by the measured the pyramid without any embarrassment or instruments. By planting a pole on the pyramid’s shadow, and the sun’s rays, when striking the pole and the pyramid, formed two triangles, you showed that the height of the pole and the pyramid are in the same proportion as their shadows”
The instrument is a ramp-shaped and has an adjustable viewfinder from which one may observe the tip of the relief one wishes to measure. Thanks to a simple proportion with the base size and the height of the tool, we can caculate how tall the building is by making a proportion to the distan-ce between my eye and the construction with x. The act of measuring becomes a way to dedicate time to a place, a time simed at building nothing other than an approach.

“And thus you will succeed in everything that you will measure. Such reasons are subtle, but very useful to an increasing number of things, which belong to the measure, and to the concealed numbers as well."

Leon Battista Alberti, Delle piacevolezze matematiche, 1450-52

Measuring Brera Astronomical observatory

Tower of Babel

2013

Plaster and pinewood base, 110 x 150 x 60 cm

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
The Tower of Babel is the ruin of a building in construction, with craters covering the entire surface with emptiness. It’s a foam that is about to grow and is already becoming smaller.
The maquette of an impossible construction.

Installation view, Incontro, Réfectoires des Nonnes, Lyon

Tower of Babel, detail

On the tiptoes

2013

Direct print on fir wood, 68 x 70 x 117 cm

Thanks to a particular printing method, which leaves an image on the surface like dust, I transferred a detail
of Mount Gasherbrum onto a fir wood ramp, allowing the snow from the image to layer onto the velvety wood.

Be inside

2013

three video on loop

This installation is made up of three videos projected onto three adiacent walls. The sound was amplified to the point where the viewer’s body perceived vibrating inside. The hypnotic images of the water whirls and cascades beckon us, while the sound, shortly after, becomes unbearable and forces us to leave.

Video 1 Screenshot

Video 2 Screenshot

Video 3 Screenshot

Hyperion

2013

Print on Aludibond, 60 x 150 cm

Craters

2013

Print on Aludibond, 60 x 150 cm

Craters, installation

Inevitable eruption

2012

Sugar and plaster, Ø 100 cm

I poured some sugar on a round base with a hole in the middle in order to obtain a perfect cone shape with a diameter of 1 meter. I raised the round base so that the sugar could exit from the hole and create a concavity. Inside this concavity, I then poured some liquid plaster. Once it solidified, I uncovered the plaster mold by putting it on the ground. The passage of matter that exists between the two bodies reveals the action.